Do You Need An Instagram Intervention?

Where digital meets travel + lifestyle … A collection of can’t-miss news from this week. Sign up to get the TURNER Weekly Download in your inbox every Friday.

Shadowbanned

Marketers, if you want to reach up to 800 million Instragram users, it’s time to update your strategy. One big reason is the so-called “shadowban,” which is the platform’s attempt to cut down on spammy hashtag use. But hashtags aren’t dead, claims AdWeek. “Instagram’s algorithm favors posts with high engagement, meaning that the more likes and comments your post receives, the more people will see your post,” writes Matt Smith. “Instagram posts with at least one hashtag have  12.6 percent more engagement than those without.” So use hashtags – but don’t abuse them!

Insta Addiction

Are you addicted to Instagram? You’re not alone. But help is on the way. Instagram is quietly rolling out a new “Usage Insights” tool that helps you see how much time you’ve spent in the photo-sharing app. According to Insta CEO Kevin Systrom, the feature is a tool “that will help the IG community know more about the time they spend on Instagram — any time should be positive and intentional.” Will we stop spending every waking hour scrolling through our IG feed? Most signs point to no.

Shop the ‘Gram

Hold on to your wallets – Instagram is about to make it a lot easier to spend money on the app. Some users have had a native payments feature added that allows you to register a debit or credit card as part of your profile. You can set up a security pin, then kick off a shopping spree without ever leaving Instagram. Dangerous! TechCrunch’s Josh Constine thinks it’ll be big: “If [Instagram] can get higher conversion rates because people don’t quit in the middle of checkout as the fill in their payment info, brands might prefer to push people to buy via [the app].”

Polling Emojis

One more Instagram update you should know about! The platform has introduced a cool new way to make your polls more fun and visually dynamic on its Instagram Stories feature. Now you can use an emoji slider that lets you ask and answer questions with an animated emoji on a sliding scale. The Verge has the lowdown: “you could have a slider to ask how an artist’s new single is or how ️friends like their food. The emoji will animate as you drag it up or down the scale, and you can check in on how individual friends answered as well as see the overall average of all responses.”

Weekly Moment of Zen

The biggest mistakes couples make on Instagram.